Center of Excellence decision delayed

School board tables vote on Leominster alternative school's move

LEOMINSTER -- The fate of the Leominster Center for Excellence will remain unclear until the School Committee can review a district plan to move it to new a facility.

"I doing think anyone here is opposed to the program," said Mayor Dean Mazzarella, who also chairs the School Committee. "We like students being able to learn, but we can't figure this whole thing out right now."

A plan to relocate the school into facilities at St. Cecilia's Parochial School was presented to the committee Monday night, with a vote on the matter scheduled to take place at the end of the evening.

Instead, however, the committee tabled the discussion until a more detailed relocation plan could be formed.

The district wants to move the center because it believes it needs more space.

The facility it currently uses, at the Doyle Conservation Center, can only accommodate 40 students because of the building's fire code. It currently has 34 students enrolled, and the district expects another six students to enroll during the school year.

"When we first talked about LCE, we talked about it growing, and I do think it could be cost-effective," Ward 5 committee member Eileen Griffin said. "I want to see the program grow, and I think that means we need the bigger space."

Hesitation among committee members came from a lack of concrete details for the proposed move.

According to district Business Manager Dan Deedy, LCE would rent space from St.

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Cecilia's. The current monthly rent at the conservation center is just under $4,500. He said the monthly rent at St. Cecilia's would be about $3,500, plus $10,000 annually for utilities.

The larger question among committee members had to do with renovation costs if the alternative school moved to St. Cecilia's.

"In essence, what we would be doing is bringing that building into the 21st century in terms of technology," said Deedy, though he admitted to some uncertainty about who would pay the cost for the building's improvements.

Even more uncertainty stemmed from the number of students the school would enroll once it had a larger facility. The long-term goal discussed by committee members and LCE staff was increasing enrollment to 150 students.

Though LCE currently has a waiting list, no clear number was given on how many students would be enrolling if the St. Cecilia's facility was made available.

The possibility of closing the school was also discussed at the meeting, though not in as much detail.

"I don't think anyone of us wants (LCE) to close because a lot of us feel it is a very worthwhile program," Ward 4 council member Nona Ojala said.

There to speak against the idea of closing the school was LCE student Dakota Anderson.

"LCE is where I'm doing my best," said Anderson, a freshman. "Ever since middle school, I've hated school, but LCE changed that for me."

"There's often a question of why can't this exist at Leominster High," LCE Principal Carrie Duff said. "Quite frankly, the environment and the emotional energy it takes for them to function there is too much for them."

A substantial portion of LCE's students have Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, and Duff said the school's "big-picture learning" tactics have helped accommodate the needs of those students.

The total amount of district funding per student at LCE is close to $13,000, which is about the same amount spent on each student at the high school's Center for Technical Education innovation each year.

According to Special Education Director Ned Pratt, LCE expects 10 of the school's 11 IEP students will likely transfer out of district if the school were to close.

Pratt said it would cost the district between $605,000 and $715,000 to send those students to schools outside Leominster.

While most committee members agreed that more information is needed before a decision could be made, others argued that the matter required immediate action.

"The issue is, we have to fund it," Ward 2 member Ronnie Houle said. "We can't wait. I want to impress upon everyone that there's a sense of urgency to this."

Ultimately, the discussion was tabled.

LCE faculty and staff have been asked by the School Committee to come up with a more detailed plan for the proposed move.

According to Ojala, the committee hopes to have a copy of the plan by its Nov. 16 meeting.

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